Best-kept secrets

I've had a number of folks comment on my appearance on Alan Colmes' radio show this past Friday evening. It was a great experience, but it also showed me there is a great need to educate America about the birth control pill. Here's one listener who's typical of the misinformed:

I heard you for the first time on the Alan Colmes radio program last night, Feb. 11, 2006. You surely flabbergasted me with your claim that birth control via the long-used pill is akin to non-surgical abortion. Never, ever heard that one before.

I am anti-abortion but firmly believe in birth control and not just by the so-called rhythm method. I really don't understand how people cannot be. Without it there would be increasing overpopulation, more starvation, a poorer quality of life, and all the attendant evils of demographics run amok both within families and in the larger societies.

So long as your group adheres to such primitive beliefs, it is bound to be ineffective and spread its cloak of absurdity on those who truly are against abortion.

Well, it is not surprising that this listener, and many others, have never heard the truth about how the birth control pill actually works; it is one of the best kept secrets in America. But as I said on the program, the information is available in any of the patient pill package inserts (they accompany every prescription) and they all list 3 modes of action. For example, the Ortho Novum “pharmacology” description states:

Combination oral contraceptives act by suppression of gonadotropins. Although the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervical mucus (which increase the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus) and the endometrium (which reduce the likelihood of implantation).

The statement “Reduce the likelihood of implantation” means that the embryonic child cannot implant and will die. This is abortion, and that is a fact.

Now, let us examine what makes the killing of a six day old embryo any different than using a knife to dismember a four month old fetus. There is no difference. And while I wholeheartedly support efforts to end the human suffering caused by starvation, and other plagues upon the members of the human race, I would never recommend killing as a solution.

I'm hoping that this listener and many others can reexamine their views so they can become totally informed pro-lifers,